[4]: 17 Bowring acquired first experiences in trade as a contract provider to the British army during the Peninsular War in the early 1810s, initially for four years from 1811 as a clerk at Milford & Co. where he began picking up a variety of languages.

[4]: 43 Failure of his business in 1827, amidst his Greek revolution financing adventure, left him reliant on Bentham's charity and seeking a new, literary direction.

He advocated in its pages the cause of free trade long before it was popularized by Richard Cobden and John Bright, co-founders of the Anti-Corn Law League in Manchester in 1838.

[7] As a member of the 1831 Royal Commission, he advocated strict parliamentary control on public expenditure, and considered the ensuing reform one of his main achievements.

Bowring was appointed Jeremy Bentham's literary executor a week before the latter's 1832 death in his arms, and was charged with the task of preparing a collected edition of his works.

[4]: 19 Through Bentham connections and in spite of his radicalism, Bowring was appointed to carry out investigations of the national accounting systems of the Netherlands and France in 1832 by the government and House of Commons, respectively.

The mark left by his work in France was not welcomed by all; as one commentator remarked, Of all men, high or low, that I ever met in society, this Dr Bowring is the most presuming and the most conceited.

[4]: 59 In 1835, Bowring entered parliament as member for Kilmarnock Burghs;[4]: 63  and in the following year he was appointed head of a government commission to be sent to France to inquire into the actual state of commerce between the two countries.

After losing his seat in 1837, he was busied in further economic investigations in Egypt, for which he produced a very extensive report,[8] as well as Syria, Switzerland, Italy, and some of the states in Imperial Germany.

The results of these missions appeared in a series of reports laid before the House of Commons and even a paper delivered to the British Association of Science with his observations on containment of the plague in the Levant.

Without inherited wealth, or salary as MP for Bolton,[10] Bowring sought to sustain his political career by investing heavily in the south Wales iron industry from 1843.

[6] Bowring was quickly appalled by endemic corruption and frustrated by finding himself powerless in the face of Chinese breaches of the Treaty of Nanking and refusal to receive him at the diplomatic level or permit him to travel to Peking, and by his being subordinate to the Governor of Hong Kong who knew nothing of his difficulties.

[4]: 128–30 For almost a year from 1852 to 1853, he acted as Britain's Plenipotentiary and Superintendent of Trade and Governor of Hong Kong in the absence on leave of Sir George Bonham, who he was later to succeed.

[4]: 138–39 The newly knighted Bowring received his appointment as Governor of Hong Kong and her Majesty's Plenipotentiary and Chief Superintendent of British Trade in China on 10 January 1854.

He arrived in Hong Kong and was sworn in on 13 April 1854,[1]: 339–340  in the midst of the Taiping Rebellion occupying the attentions of his primary protagonists and the Crimean War distracting his masters.

Fellow Unitarian Harriet Martineau[14] had warned that Bowring was "no fit representative of Government, and no safe guardian of British interests", that he was dangerous and would lead Britain into war with China, and that he should be recalled.

He proposed that the constitution of the Legislative Council be changed to increase membership to 13 members, of whom five be elected by landowners enjoying rents exceeding 10 pounds, but this was rejected by Henry Labouchère of the Colonial Office on the basis that Chinese residents were "deficient in the essential elements of morality on which social order rests".

[4]: 173 He became embroiled in numerous conflicts and disputes, not least of which was a struggle for dominance with Lieutenant Governor William Caine, which went all the way back to the Colonial Office for resolution.

... many unfortunate wretches of all nations (as the hatred of the Chinese is indiscriminating) have been seized, decaptitated; and their heads have been exposed on the walls of Canton, their assailants having been largely rewarded; ... All this is sufficiently horrible ... we shall exact indemnities for the past, and obtain securities for the future.

I doubt not that Government, Parliament, and public opinion will go with us in this great struggle, ...[1]: 423–24 In 1855, Bowring experienced a reception in Siam that could not have stood in starker contrast to Peking's constant intransigence.

He was welcomed like foreign royalty, showered with pomp (including a 21-gun salute), and his determination to forge a trade accord was met with the open-minded and intelligent interest of King Mongkut.

[1]: 568–69 A commission of inquiry into accusations of corruption, operating brothels and associating with leading underworld figures laid by Attorney-General Anstey against Registrar-General Daniel R Caldwell scandalised the administration.

During the course of its proceedings Anstey had opportunity to viciously accuse William Thomas Bridges, one-time acting Attorney-General and constant favourite of Bowring, for receiving stolen goods under the guise of running a money-lending operation from the ground floor of his residence, collecting debts at extortionate rates.

[1]: 502–36 In mourning for the recent loss of his wife to the arsenic poisoning, Bowring made an official tour of the Philippines, sailing on the steam-powered paddle frigate Magicienne[17]: 5  on 29 November 1858, returning seven weeks later.

[1]: 564 Stripped of his diplomatic and trade powers,[1]: 594–95  weakened by the effects of the arsenic, and seeing his administration torn apart by anti-corruption inquiries in a campaign launched by him, Bowring's work in Hong Kong ended in May 1859.

[6]: 43–44  His parting sentiment was that "a year of great embarrassment ... unhappy misunderstandings among officials, fomented by passionate partisanship and by a reckless and slanderous press, made the conduct of public affairs one of extreme difficulty.

Bowring subsequently accepted the appointment of minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary from the Hawaiian government to the courts of Europe, and in this capacity negotiated treaties with Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

[4]: 50–52 [note 3] His chief literary work was the translation of the folk-songs of most European nations, although he also wrote original poems and hymns, and books or pamphlets on political and economic subjects.

[4]: 47–48 In the mid-19th century a district of the Llynfi Valley, Glamorgan, south Wales was known as Bowrington as it was built up when John Bowring was chairman of the local iron company.

Bowring Road, Ramsey, Isle of Man, was named for him in appreciation of his support of universal suffrage for the House of Keys and his efforts to liberalise trade with the island.